On Screen Control Direction Indicator?

[MarkEAW 62]

What is the purpose of the control indicator thats on the screen when moving things around?

I know it knows which mouse button im pushing as it lights up a indicator.

I was wondering if you had anymore plans for it, or if its completed?

What do you call it?

[VonBeerhofen 63]

It's called the front_director and it's only visible when the reticule is not or only partial visible. No buttons are asigned to it and in WinME there's no action visible when I press mouse or stick buttons. It's noted that it's not very useful at present and that it can easily be given a function, perhaps lead position of the bullets when fired under heavy g-force or as ILS. Not really thought about it but it can even function as a new bomb sight, like the Norden and help aiming in bombing missions, I like that idea as I do have a bomber pilot in the group who loves doing bomb runs but can't hit the broad side of a mountain as it stands now, unless it's a carpet bombing mission. I've added it already to my list of ideas.

Edited August 11, 2023 by VonBeerhofen

[MarkEAW 62]

In win10 I have left mouse, middle and right indicators light up within the front_director "sight" thing.
I believe it also lit up when i used the arrow keys to fly the plane. 
The mouse moves it around.

I know you can't do this,
but a sight/cursor like that is used in other games to click on targets and objects out the flight windows to lock on. Some sims use it to click cockpit buttons and levers and switches.
Not really needed in EAW though. Just mentioning it. :)

Alright thanks for filling me in.

 

[MarkEAW 62]

Do you need a screen shot or two to see the indicator light up?

 

[VonBeerhofen 63]

OK, show me the picture, maybe we're not talking about the same thing. As far as I can determine it's controlled by the HUD value in the INI, together with all the other targeting info. I did change something there, maybe what you see is the result of it.

VonBeerhofen

[MarkEAW 62]

Hmmm. I could not get a capture of it. It flashes fast when its displayed. Disappears just before i take a screenshot.

Anyhow. Its a crosshair sight looking thing and it lights up a square on the left side and right side when i push the mouse buttons. The center sight part animates when I press the middle mouse button.

 

[MarkEAW 62]

I tired again, and nothing, it was present on the screen, but the screenshot shows no sight.

Maybe its a debug thing you stumbled upon.??

When i use the keyboard arrow keys, the sight jumps in the direction i push the arrow key.

Its defiantly tied to the camera mouse view, and the input gets a visual representation of what's being used.

 

EDIT:

I'm dumb. I think it might be part of the wrapper, hooking the dinput and using a virtual joystick. So I'll have to recheck that stuff, and see whats going on there.

EDIT 2:

Yup, it was the virtual joystick setting from the wrapper. For some reason I needed the vstick to load the game, but its running fine without it now and that mysterious crosshair is gone too. ;) lol

Edited August 12, 2023 by MarkEAW
wrapper hooking input

[VonBeerhofen 63]

I investigated it a bit further and found that all it's doing is to indicate where the reticule is when you rotate the view in the cockpit. It's only active when the game isn't using 2D cockpits, i.e. in resolutions above 800 x 600 in the stock game. Maybe it's useful for Track IR or similar controllers. It's of no personal use to me as it's much easier to reset the cockpit snap view and faster too.

VonBeerhofen